1. Who your coffee partner is as a person – which leads to stronger relationships.
2. A new perspective on your career and career issues – which allows you more options and helps you make better professional decisions.
3. How you can help the other people in your network – which helps you bring value and makes you feel good.

I have a shelf in my office full of sales books, and they pretty much all say the same things.  So when I read another book on sales these days, what I'm looking for are the few nuggets that stand out and make the lightbulb go off.  It might be a reminder of something I already knew, or a different way of looking at a part of the sales process, but it's a piece of actionable information that will make a difference in my results.

Jeffrey definitely delivers in the Little Red Book of Selling.  This isn't a book of basics, and I think there are better foundation books out there.  For salespeople with a little experience under their belt, though, this is a great tool to use to develop advanced business skills.

Big Thought:

“People Don't Like to be Sold, but They Love to Buy … your job as a master salesman is to create an atmosphere where people want to buy” (first page)

Ideas, Implications, and Questions:

• Most sales books put forth a sales process that is “scientific”, meaning that if it’s run the right way, anyone could run it.  But, whether we want to admit it or not, a prospect’s feelings towards the salesperson influences what will happen.  I like that Jeffrey points out that “liking is the single most powerful element in a sales relationship.”  Because, “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends.  All things being not quite so equal, people STILL want to do business with their friends.” (pg 81)  So it’s important to develop your sales skills, but it’s even more critical to develop your interpersonal skills.
• Over and over, Jeffrey points out that people who buy aren’t looking to become informed and educated, they are looking for someone to solve their problems as quickly as possible.  I think a lot of salespeople fall into the trap of telling their customers about their products – when all the customers care about is the ability of the product to fix  their issues.  It’s the the old school “features vs. benefits” idea – tell prospects how you can help them, not the facts and figures.
• One of the most common objections that salespeople run into is price – because every prospect has a finite amount of cash they can spend.  Too many sales people wither when this comes up, instead of standing up for themselves.  I love Jeffrey’s response: “Price or profit, Mr. Jones, which would you rather have?” (pg 77)

• “In sales it's not who you know.  In sales, it's who knows you.” (pg 63).  A powerful reminder about prospecting – especially for those who use networking to build their pipeline.  What are you doing to increase the visibility of your brand in the marketplace – especially as a solver of problems?   If it’s used correctly, social media is a really useful tool for solving both sides of the equation.

Should you read this book?

If you are selling – absolutely.  It will re-focus your efforts and re-engage you with your craft at a high level.  Definitely worth the time.

Happiness is the ever-elusive holy grail that we keep chasing – and it seems after all of our efforts, we’re not getting any closer to achieving it.  The problem, as Daniel Gilbert points out in the beginning of Stumbling on Happiness, is that we even struggle to even define what happiness is!  Stumbling on Happiness is one of the few books that I’ve read that tackles the question of our happiness from a common-sense, almost rational,  point of view.  If all of us want it, and are willing to work for it, why do we live so much of our lives in unhappiness.  Daniel tackles this question with using  a variety of disciplines, including psychology, neurobiology, behavioral economics, and luckily, a good deal of humor.

Big Thought

Human beings are really bad at predicting what they need to do now to feel happy in the future.  But if we understand why we’re bad at predicting our future needs, we can start to make different decisions in the present.

Ideas, Implications, and Questions

•  The implications of Stumbling on Happiness are quite far-reaching, but the biggest impact it made was on my own decision-making process.  Unfortunately, it didn’t necessarily help me make better decisions, but it helped illuminate how my own process worked, and gave me a reason to slow down and consider other alternatives.  In this way, it actually reinforces the Buddhist practice of desirelessness, because it gave me another tool to realize that doing something now (eating a doughnut, buying a DVD, sleeping late) wasn’t necessarily going to create happiness for my future self.
• “The surprisingly right answer is that people find it gratifying to exercise control – not just for the futures it buys them, but for the exercise itself.  Being effective – changing things, influencing things, making things happen – is one of the fundamental human needs…” (pg 22).  I’ve seen this over and over in myself and in the people I work with.  If you want to make someone happier, give them ownership and control over how they use their time.  People love the feeling of control, even if it’s just an illusion. 
• “Not only do we select favorable facts from magazines, we also select them from memory.” (pg 181).  This reminds me of the Zanders’ “it’s all invented” from The Art of Possibility.  If we are going to be subjective in finding support for our beliefs, why not find support for the beliefs that help us.  On a negative side, it also illustrates why arguing politics with someone is usually futile – we tend to pick the facts that agree with our viewpoint and ignore the contrary facts.
• “The tendency to recall and rely on unusual instances is one of the reasons why we so often repeat mistakes.” (pg 221).  The availability heuristic defines how exceptions stand out in our minds and therefore seem the norm.  This has a huge impact in business when professionals “manage to the exception”.  As examples, managers will often put policies into place based on the behaviors of a few employees versus the norm or salespeople will put phrases into their sales presentation based on the response from just a few customers.  The more conscious you can be of this tendency, the less likely you are to manage your activities based on the “anecdotes” that you can remember easily.

Should you read this book? 

Yes. Yesterday.  While not a handbook on how to live your life, I think that everyone can use a glimpse into the processes we all use on a daily basis to make decisions.  It will help explicate the decisions that those you live and work with make, and you won’t have to wonder, “What were they thinking when they made that decision?” And maybe more importantly, it will help you understand how you got to where you are with the decisions you make.

People that are good at building and maintaining a strong professional network are rarely unemployed for long; and it’s not just because they know a lot of people who can hire them.  It’s because the competencies that are necessary for successful networking are highly sought after in the job market.  When you are actively networking, you are both a) continually honing these skills and more importantly, b) proving that you have them! 

Here are a few of the intangible skills involved in successful networking:

Interpersonal Communication Skills – Networking is communicating.  If you are a good networker you are adept at one of the most important business skills around: engaging with another human being.  You can talk to people, ask questions, listen to their responses; in other words, you know how to build relationships. This is not a universal skill, and it’s highly prized by employers.

Self-Confidence –  Reaching out to someone new is hard, and building new relationships is tough; that’s why we usually just stick to our own small social group.  By networking, you are proving that you have the confidence to approach new people, and that if things don’t go great, it won’t discourage you.  Self-worth is an attribute that can’t be taught and is in high demand (and not just in the sales department).

Teamwork – Networking involves supporting other people, and asking for help when you need it, i.e., it requires teamwork.  Everyone says they’re a team player, but we both know that’s not the case.  By showing you can work in the social web and that you have people that want to interact with you (without being forced because you work together), you prove that you can “play well with the other kids” and that you’re a good addition to an organization.

These are just a few of the skills that you hone when you are networking, and are critical to  excelling in the workplace.  Technical skills aren’t enough.  If all you have is the technical skill to do a job, you’re replaceable by someone else who has that skill, or by technology.  You are just a commodity, interchangeable with anyone else who has that skill.  But when you take the technical skills and add the ability to interact with others (coworkers, clients, bosses, direct reports) at a high level, you create a powerful mix of skill sets.

Who gets the chance to practice these skills and improve their worth to a potential employer?  It’s the person who is out building relationships on a regular basis, regardless of their current employment situation.  If you consistently put yourself in situations where you are interacting with new people and improving your “soft skills”, you are constantly becoming more valuable in the marketplace.  This, combined with the fact that you do know more people who can connect you with job opportunities, will ensure that you never want for work.

I was having a conversation with a sales manager the other day about how to train and develop his salespeople.  After mapping out an effective curriculum, he paused and asked, “This is great for the motivated ones, but what about the people that are just lazy?” 

It’s an interesting question, but in the end it’s the wrong one.  I have yet to meet a person who is genuinely lazy, someone who has laziness as an inherent part of their personality.  I have, however, met many, many individuals who exhibit lazy behaviors.  Laziness is a symptom, not a disease.  I’ve found there are three reasons why someone will act lazily:

1. Fear of the Unknown – When we engage in a new activity, something changes and we don’t always know how that change will affect us.  Or we think the change will have some benefit, but we aren’t sure; in fact, it might actually cause pain.
2. Lack of Competence – If we don’t know how to accomplish a task, it’s easier to not even attempt it.  This is commonly found in the business world. 
3. No Compelling Reason to Act – An unfinished project would be usually be finished immediately if there was suddenly a million dollar reward.  This is complicated, however, by the fact that most compelling reasons are rarely financial (as you can see when, counter-intuitively, financial rewards don’t create increased activity).

When faced with managing a “lazy” person, then, the most important part of the process is diagnosing the real cause of inaction.  It’s important to identify which of these three reasons is most prevalent.  By the way, if you are facing your own inherent “laziness”, it’s the same process.

This is the true role of a leader or manager: finding out why those you are overseeing aren’t taking action.  And people are often unaware of their true blocks, which makes it more challenging.  In many ways, the most important role to play is one of investigator or detective, because once the real problems are known, it’s possible to prescribe remedies to the disease of laziness:

1. If there is a fear of the unknown, help to define possible outcomes.  Although the future can never be fully known, it’s often enough to dispel worst-case scenarios to create movement.
2. If a lack of competence is leading to inaction, help develop competence.  Provide training and direction on the skills necessary for success: create opportunities to practice and role-play, give access to books and other necessary materials, or send people to  conferences and seminars.  The more comfortable someone is in performing a task or activity, the more likely they are to engage in it.
3. Most importantly, create rewards and reasons to act.  As stated before, financial rewards usually fall flat.  However, we get stuck on financial rewards because they're easy.  Spend time with people in your organization and you’ll find what really makes them move.  The desire for personal and professional growth, the desire to help the team and be part of something bigger, or the desire to feel appreciated can be powerful motivators to tap into. 

“Laziness” is an easy scapegoat; it’s easy to call someone lazy and write them off.  With a little attention and conversation, though, it’s possible to get past initial impressions to the true challenges, and therefore, to the true solutions.

If you haven’t noticed, the way the world works has changed a lot.  Daily life is going to be a lot different for my children than it was for my parents. In times of change, we yearn for security. Unfortunately, the places that we’ve traditionally found security – career, families, culture - are where most of the changes are happening.  One area this is obvious is the lack of traditional job security.

From a historical perspective, it was way easier when you knew that someday you would take your parent’s job.  Millers milled, Porters ported, Smiths smithed (I’m pretty sure I know what my forefathers did for a living...). Even during most of the twentieth century, stable employment was the cultural norm – you worked for the same company until they gave you a gold watch and (hopefully) a pension.

These days, long-term stays with the same employer aren’t expected – by the employer or the employee.  Needless to say, this has caused a lot of stress as we bounce from position to position through periods of  “career transition”, trying to find a stable paycheck in an unstable world.  Even if you are highly skilled at your trade, outside variables have a profound impact on your employment.

It might not be possible to get rid of that stress, but it is possible to mitigate it.  One of the easiest ways of doing this is through building a strong professional network.  No matter your industry or profession, the more connections you have, and the stronger your relationships, the more support you will have when you transition from one position to another.

In Free Agent Nation, Daniel Pink wrote about a trend he saw in which short-term work teams would come together to work on a project and then disband to go onto other projects.  Whether or not you are a freelance graphic designer or corporate HR manager, there is much more fluidity in your career path.  If you accept that fluidity, and attempt to flow with the currents instead of fighting them, your professional opportunities will increase and your  stress hormones will decrease.

How do you go with the flow and still pay the bills.  If you are unemployed, your most valuable resource is information: Who is hiring?  What skills are employers looking for?  Who is a center of influence in your profession?  What are the trends in the industry?  Although you can get some of that information online, the most direct way is through your contacts.  Especially because they act as filters – they give you the most relevant information to your success because they want you to be successful.  They help direct your attention and efforts, and make it easier for you to act on the information, e.g., facilitate an introduction to an important contact.

The more robust your network, then, the easier it is to find the next position when your current one comes to an end.  The more influence you can bring to bear from others, the better.  The people in your network may be able to hire you directly, or they will have access to people who are hiring or information on where the jobs are.  Not only can this shorten the time when you are “between positions” or “in transition”, it can make those times an important part of your career growth instead of stagnation.

The key to having this network in place is constant cultivation.  Building your network can’t be an activity you start the day after you are laid off – it has to be a consistent part of your professional life.  Too often, people are scrambling to make networking connections, and trying to leverage them too quickly, because they didn’t lay any foundation when they were still employed.  Take the time now to build those relationships, because when you know that there’s a safety net of contacts and connections underneath you, you won’t feel the stress of walking the career tightrope.  You’ll know that even if you fall off, you’ll have a clear path to your next opportunity.

In the past fifty years, the exchange of ideas between the eastern and western hemispheres has increased dramatically, but there remains huge opportunities to mesh these cultures together.  If you’ve ever seen The Karate Kid, your image of the “far east” might begin and end with Mr. Miyagi clapping his hands, focusing his chi, and inexplicably healing Daniel-san.  In these days of globalization, though, what was once esoteric is now becoming common, and this is definitely true when it comes to Eastern philosophies.  Buddhism and Hinduism, for example, which were once veiled in mystery, are now part of common conversations.  

There’s still a lot of misinterpretation, though.  Heck, look how often terms like nirvana and karma are tossed around (usually incorrectly).  It takes years and years to develop a true grasp of many of these concepts, but there are a few simple ideas that can have a huge impact on how we operate in our daily lives.  Zen Buddhism, for example, has always had an attraction to overwhelmed Westerners.  There are a number of Zen principles that can help (without us having to become a monks first), one of which is the practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness as a concept is pretty simple.  It’s the idea of a single-minded focus on the present moment; of being completely present to what you are doing and thinking right now.  It sounds like it should be easy, but it’s close to impossible to practice mindfulness regularly (try focusing your attention on an object for even one minute without thinking about anything else).  Zen practitioners spend a lifetime in meditation developing the ability to focus on each moment on a consistent basis.

You might not achieve the focus of a Zen master, but practicing mindfulness provides useful benefits.  We live in a culture that has taken multi-tasking to a new height, even though it’s proven that people can’t actually multi-task (even if you think you are the world’s best multi-tasker – you’re really not very effective).  It’s common for us to think about what we have to do later in the day or week, or to dwell on past conversations and situations.  You might even be thinking of something else right now as you try to read this article.  Our over-active minds are constantly pulling us out of this present mindfulness.

This impedes successful activity because concentration is a key ingredient of high-performance.  Talk to any top athlete or artist about their peak states, and focused attention is always a big part of their response.  (Mihaly Csikszentmihaly called it a “flow state").  A simple way to increase your flow states is to practice bringing the power of mindfulness into your daily activities.  Here are a few places to start: 

1. Concentrate on one activity.  If you are answering emails, answer emails.  If you are talking on the phone, talk on the phone.  If you are eating a sandwich, eat a sandwich.  But try to avoid doing all of them at once.  When you do multiple activities concurrently, you’ll do each at a lower level and you won’t be able to get into a “groove” with any of them.
2. Minimize distractions.  It might not be possible to eliminate all distractions, but it is possible to avoid unnecessary ones.  If your mind has no problem going off target on its own, it doesn’t make sense to help it.  When you are working on a project, turn off your email and phone.  And, if you can, close the door to your office or put on headphones to prevent people from interrupting.
3. Create short periods of focus.  If you know that you have a project that you want to make progress on, set a time frame in which you are going to do nothing else (see the Hour of Power).  Fifteen to sixty minutes is ideal, anything longer and it’s easy to mentally wander into something else.  This way, when you do find your attention slipping, you’ll be able to refocus more quickly because you know you only have to stay on task for a finite period of time.

Now admittedly, when you put these ideas into place, you won’t suddenly become a Zen master.  But you will find that you are able to accomplish tasks more easily, more quickly, and with a lot less stress.

I often get asked about the ideal number of connections you should have in your professional network.  The topic often gets muddled because our first impulse is to equate networking success directly with the number of connections we have.  I’m here to tell you that you don’t need a huge number contacts to have networking work for you.  It’s much more important that you have strong relationships with the people in your network.  But if you are really looking for that magic number of connections, here it is:

One more than you have now.

That’s the key to success.   What’s really important isn’t the overall number of connections, but the attitude you bring to your activity. If you are always looking for one more connection, you’ll find that you keep yourself open to new opportunities and relationships; and that’s the key to successful networking.

So whether you have 10, 100, or 1,000 contacts, the goals is to keep your eyes open for that next relationship you can build.  

If you have ever stepped back and watched the action at a business networking event, the resemblance to a singles bar is uncanny (and slightly unnerving).  Think about it, there's a bunch of people wandering around, nervously approaching people they don’t know because they’re hoping to meet that special someone that will make their life better.  And most prefer to stay with the group of people they already know (or by the bar) because it's more comfortable.

Professional networking has a lot of similarities to dating - which shows you why a lot of people don't like networking, because let's face it, dating is hard.  But if we look at the similarities, we can also see how to make our networking more effective and ultimately, more fun.

1. You have to go where the prospects are. – Single people hang out at bars and parties for a reason – that’s where the other single people are.  In the same way, you should go where your ideal business connections are spending time.  Whether it’s a Chamber of Commerce event, an association mixer, or an entrepreneur’s club, put yourself in close contact with the people you want to meet.
2. The best introductions come from friends. – If you want to grow your network, start with your friends.  A lot of first dates come from, “Introduce me to your cute friend…”.  Start building your business network by asking your friends and close colleagues: “Who else should I know?” and “Can you introduce us?”.  And then follow up on those introductions
3. You’re going to have a lot of first dates. – Just like finding a significant other, when you are looking for clients, employers, vendors, or whomever, it’s a numbers game.  You aren't going to have a strong personal or professional with everyone you meet, so you have to meet a lot of people to construct a vibrant network.  It helps to “play the field” as much as possible.  The good thing, though, unlike dating, the more relationships you develop, the better.
4. Sometimes, you have to just be friends. – As you meet more and more people, you'll realize that some of your relationships aren’t going to be productive from a business standpoint.  That’s totally OK.  You’ll find that some of those relationships will gradually fade or that some will evolve into personal friendships.  Every business connection you make doesn’t have to “end at the altar”.
5. Sometimes, you need to take a break. – Meeting new people and building new relationships is tiring work.  Sometimes you’ll need to rest, maybe spend some time with your established relationships, or maybe even take some “me” time.  You don’t always have to be “on” to be successful in networking.  In fact, when you recharge your batteries periodically, you’ll find it’s easier to network like a RockStar!

Just like dating, building a powerful network takes time, energy, and attention.  It’s rarely a straight line, with a lot of starts and stops.  But in the same way, it’s worth it when things fall into place and great things happen because you met that special someone!

What causes entrepreneurs to fail?

It’s a question that comes up a lot when working with clients who are struggling to build their businesses.  Even new business owners who are doing well often feel that they are close to the edge of insolvency and are frustrated by how quickly (or rather, how slowly) their businesses are growing.  Obviously, starting and growing a new enterprise is challenging, or everyone would be doing it.  By where does that challenge come from?

Aside from the many logistical obstacles (capital, training, economic viability, etc.), one of the main struggles is psychological.  This is an area that most new entrepreneurs don’t prepare for, and subsequently, it becomes one of the main reasons that they fail.  Being an entrepreneur requires a different psychological skill set than most other career paths.  One of the key concepts that is critical for successful entrepreneurs to understand is:

Business growth is non-linear.

As humans, we are are comfortable with linear relationships.  For example, if I kick a soccer ball and it goes 50 feet, I expect that when I kick it twice as hard it will go twice as far.  In the professional world, we expect someone who has worked at a job longer to have more skills and be more competent.  In fact, the traditional idea of career advancement is very linear – as someone grew older, it was expected that they would gain skills and experience and rise in their organization into positions of more authority and more compensation.

This is why it’s disorienting for new entrepreneurs when they realize that the growth model for their new company isn’t linear – especially in the short-term.  Business grow in a non-linear fashion that usually looks something like this:

The linear path (the straight line from the bottom left to the top right) defines what we normally expect: one unit of effort equals one unit of return.  For anyone who has worked a job for an hourly wage, this makes sense: “I get paid x dollars for every hour I work”.  The line that starts under that linear trajectory but eventually curves above it is the path that most entrepreneurial ventures follow: in the beginning of a new business the input outweighs the return, but eventually the growth of the business means that less effort and time are needed for increasingly large returns.

The pivot point is the critical point – it’s where the enterprise goes from being a time and energy “drain” to a leveraged organization.  It’s where entrepreneurs are able to find the “entrepreneurial payoff” in which they are compensated well above what the linear path would have dictated.  This also makes up for the beginning when they were losing out on return by choosing the entrepreneurial path.

It’s important to realize that this is a visual representation, but not necessarily a mathematical one.  (I’m not much of a mathematician as it is.)   While we are using a graphical visual, it doesn’t mean that there are hard and clear equations which govern how it looks.  In fact, it’s inherently non-quantifiable.  This is one of the most important parts of the entrepreneurial journey, because it’s not possible to define the pivot point.  It’s often possible to define a break-even point financially, but it’s not possible to define when it will occur. Anyone who tells you that they have hard and fast way to determine this is trying to sell you something. 

If you can’t define the exact path of the non-linear growth, what’s the value of looking at this chart?  It’s main benefit is psychological.  The more awareness you can bring to the psychological pitfalls of entrepreneurship, the more you can prepare ourselves for them.  As more people are beginning their own entrepreneurial ventures, it becomes critical to understand that building a business doesn’t work like other “jobs”.  This can be incredibly valuable for small service-oriented “solopreneurs” who are making a go of it on their own.

One of the common reasons new businesses fail is that entrepreneurs feel that they aren’t getting the results that they “should” be getting.  They become frustrated and they give up, often just before they are about to hit the pivot point and see success.   That doesn’t mean that every entrepreneurial effort will succeed given enough time.  It’s quite possible that the pivot point is so far in the future as to be practically impossible to reach, or that there isn’t enough capital or knowledge to get to that point.  This does, however, illustrate three critical mindsets that every entrepreneur has to inculcate: 

1.  There is a difference between the direct results we are used to and the non-linear nature of business development.  Most of the physical world follows a path of direct results; we think that with every additional unit of energy, we should get an additional unit of result.   New businesses don’t grow that way, so don’t get frustrated (because frustration just leads to unhappiness and bad decision-making).

2. Be ready to invest the time and energy in your new venture, if you aren’t willing or able to get through it, don’t start.  And if you are in the thick of it but you don’t want to invest more effort, get out!  You’ll just be throwing money and time away, and you won’t get to the point of positive return. 

3. The pivot point is inherently unknowable because there are so many variables that influence it.  It can depend on industry and profession, and it depends on revenue vs. expense.  But keep looking for ways to accelerate towards the pivot point – look for activities that are truly investments in your business like relationship building and brand awareness – they’ll have have a positive impact down the line.

Building your own business can have huge rewards, both financially and emotionally.  But there is an investment to be made up front.  The more aware you are of the mental challenges of entrepreneurship, the more you’ll be able to prepare for them, and the more likely you are to succeed!